


Acceptance and Resignation

by somethingclever



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Pre-Iron Man 3, Pre-Slash, Prostitution referenced, Steve Rogers is Not a Virgin, Tony Stark Is a Good Bro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2019-04-19 16:08:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14240961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somethingclever/pseuds/somethingclever
Summary: Steve Rogers can schmooze, he just doesn't like to.  When Fury sends him to woo a Senator into funding SHIELD's R&D, Tony takes... exception.





	Acceptance and Resignation

Well, Steve thought as he shook the Senator’s hand and smiled with warmth he didn’t feel, at least he was a higher class prostitute than he used to be.  
  
Somehow, halfway through the second course of perfect, beautiful, unsatisfying food with weird textures, he missed the honesty of when he’d not been Captain America, when he’d gone to the docks in shirtsleeves and an open collar. That kind of sale was easy, straightforward- honest.  He needed money, they wanted somebody who wouldn’t refuse, or complain, and that was that.  
  
Or even on the spangle circuit, but there it was different again, rich draft dodgers, businessmen, politician’s wives, actors- and the girls had been with him more than anybody realized, and he with them. That had made it okay, made it tolerable, because they could all joke about the handsy ones, keep above it and away from it, and it wasn’t about them.  
  
Not this- he laughed at the joke about his old-fashioned sensibilities, about how wonderful electricity was (1940, he thought, not 1840)- this powerplay.  Before, people wanted a piece a’ somethin’, not him. Not Steve. Now, it was a piece of him, and he was about out of pieces.  
  
And people thought he didn’t lie? Didn’t feel? What was it Tony called him, a _Capsicle_?  
  
He wasn’t hungry (he was starving) and it all tasted like ash as this man spouted shit about shit, and Steve didn’t have anywhere else to be, or he would be there, not here.  Fury said to get this man on ‘their’ side, and Fury was just about the only guy who had figured out that Steve did, actually, know how to schmooze, he just didn’t like to.  
  
He’d rather punch the sycophant in his teeth.  
  
The offer was made, sly and almost-shy, a wink as good as a nod, apparently, and Steve didn’t have anything better to-  
  
“Oh there you are,” Tony’s smile was warm and genuine, “I didn’t know you were at this shin-dig, Steve! Senator Stern’s been keeping you to himself!”  
  
That was the point?  
  
“Hello, Mr. Stark, Captain Rogers came as my guest this evening,” and the man settled a hand on his arm lightly, and Steve remembered what that meant, even if Bucky was the only one who ever held him like that, like he was owned.  (And only ever in the dark, either of their apartment or the dives run by the mob.) “I didn’t know you were invited?”  
  
“I’m never _not_ invited, and how nice for you,” Tony said, turning to Steve, dismissing the Senator, “So, Steve, did you see the Met’s newest exhibit? Art from the old Roosevelt funded project, the, Ah- Ah-“  
  
“WPA?”  
  
“Yeah, That.” Again, the smile, and Tony reached over, removed the Senator’s hand from Steve’s arm, and slid his hand down Steve’s arm to his wrist, tugging gently, guiding him away from the angle he’d been drawn to. “Pepper loves it, she wants to go, and I know you like art, I thought you’d maybe be up to go with her? I like pretty things, too,” he said to the senator, shrugging. “But I don’t appreciate it like I should, do you?”

Senator Stern didn’t get a chance to reply as Tony guided Steve into the main area- he’d been slowly being edged towards the private areas of the mansion the taxpayers didn’t know they were funding- or was it the lobbyists? How the hell was a servant of the people- oh, right, politics, and he was here to-  
  
“I was supposed to get him to increase funding for SHIELD’s R&D,” he told Tony, amused.  
  
Tony tilted his head, looking at him, “So you do know-“  
  
“I’m not stupid,” Steve rebuked, “Or naive. And he wouldn’t be my first senator I’ve asked for money.”  
  
“This is hardly bullets in the barrel of your best guy’s gun.”  
  
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Steve groaned, “Please never say that again. How do you even know that?”

Tony blinked at him, “I was raised with Star Spangled Man With a Plan as my lullaby? I could quote the bonds spiel by the time I was three. Dad loved it. Where did you learn that word? Naughty-naughty.”  
  
Steve felt sick at the thought of a tiny Tony imitating him, of Howard steeping his son in the stew that was his bonds tour. “I see,” he replied, leaning on the stage training to keep his face bland, pull up a story to diffuse, “I learned it same place as anybody else did, I s’pose, the neighbor kids. Nobody was ever dumb enough to tell their ma they’d learnt it from Dad and his pals, were they?”  
  
Tony snorted, “I know I sure wasn’t,” he agreed, “I thought your dad-“  
  
“Pepper wants to go see the exhibit? I wouldn’t mind going with her.”

Tony was smart, and nodded, “Yeah. I might tag along, see if there’s anything I can buy, see if the food is better than this place,” he sniffed.  
  
Steve’s eyebrow climbed, “Something wrong with the food?”  
  
“Well, first, it was foam, not food, and the chef was so focused on the molecular, he lost the gastronomy-“  
  
“I really hate,” Steve’s temper flared, “When you deliberately make sure I can’t understand you. I should just-“ go back to the senator, but he didn’t want to. He wanted Tony to let him in on the joke. Just for tonight. Let him understand, let this be real, like home was real, make it like the world wasn’t taking him, it was just-  
  
Tony stopped his bubbling tirade, his smile falling and eyes focusing back on Steve’s face behind his ridiculous sunglasses, “That’s what it’s called,” he said, gently, “And nobody gets it, everyone hates it, and it’s stupid. They’re taking food and making it snobby. Some kind of faux art statement. And I don’t do it on purpose, Steve. Well. Not usually.”

“Sorry,” he muttered, still angry and something inside wanting to claw at him for his gentle understanding, for the audacity to assume he knew what was best for Steve, for-  
  
For caring.  
  
Shit.  
  
“Sorry,” he replied, “If you don’t like it, the food, I mean, maybe I can buy you dinner?”  
  
Tony blinked at him, head tilting like a bird spying a good crumb very close to an alley cat, gauging if it was worth it, “I... would like that. Did you bring a car?”  
  
“He picked me up.”  
  
“Ah. Well, lucky us, I have a car. Let’s go.”

They wound up at a little diner not far from the airport, the waitresses’ only indication of recognition that she paused and looked over her order pad for a second before offering the specials.  Steve found he was hungry, and ordered the special and a burger, hopeful that it would be as good as it smelled. Tony ordered as well, fingers drumming the tabletop as he glared over Steve’s shoulder.  
  
“I’ve got the door,” Steve said casually, “If you’ve got the back.” Tony’s eyes flicked up to Steve’s, and he nodded sharply.  
  
“So... molecular gastronomy?”  
  
Tony smiled, actually smiled, and launched into the explanation of the worst idea since tomato soup cake. They chatted about food, about Tony’s Days at MIT and burning eggs, and Steve’s first attempt at soup (gray sludge with rice _and_ potatoes boiled too long in broth) and the worst fire either had ever started.  
  
It was fun.

“Why Malibu?” Steve asked after the second round of dessert and third coffee, his suit coat discarded and Tony’s tie loosened.  
  
“Not sure you wanna know,” Tony replied, leaning back in the booth, peering at him as if he still had his sunglasses on.  
  
“Howard?” Steve’s smile was wry.  
  
“Everything,” Tony said. “And Howard. Big surprise, huh, that your buddy-“ he was winding himself up, Steve realized, to get angry, to lash out. And Steve didn’t want a fight.  
  
He was tired of it, tired of people reading books or hearing about him and thinking they knew who he was and what he thought, about his life and loves and-  
  
“We were friendly, but we weren’t really friends. We wouldn’t have- we wouldn’t do this,” Steve waved at the table, the cheesecake and pie remnants, the coffee cups and stack of creamers teetering between them, “Howard wouldn’t want to do this with me.”  
  
Tony blinked at him, “He always said-“  
  
“I was an experiment. A successful, unreplicable-“  
  
“Not a word-“  
  
“Experiment. He wanted to poke me to pieces, and I think he liked to tease me, I was a pretty good straight man to his charm. I was good at it, did it for Buck for years. So I... I liked him okay, but we weren’t like...” like you and I, he didn’t say, because he never said things like that.  
  
Tony slurped at his soda, peering at him, “Huh,” he said finally. “Ever seen the Pacific?”  
  
“No. The tour didn’t make it that far- I mean, we were in LA? But I didn’t get to leave the venue, and we headed straight back-“  
  
“If you saw it,” Tony said, “You would want to always see it. I love looking at it. Maybe I don’t see art like you and Pep, but there’s something... I like it. So I built an impossible house over it.” He shrugged, “And I live there, where I can look at it when I want.”

Steve nodded slowly. “I get it.”  
  
“That’s probably why you’ve got yourself a place in Brooklyn?”  
  
Steve’s heart wrenched a little, “I can’t afford Brooklyn,” he said, “Any more than I ever could. No, SHIELD set me up a place in DC, I, uh... what?” Tony’s face twisted and his fingers splayed over the tabletop.  
  
“You... live in DC. In a SHIELD safe house? What are they...” Tony’s face flushed, “Are they trying to use you to death? My god.”

Steve frowned, “It’s not any different than-“  
  
“Than what?” Tony’s voice was low and sharp, “They sent- Fury actually did ask you to-“ one hand tapped the table, the other ticked along the edge of metal in his chest and-  
  
The arc reactor really was embedded in him? Steve looked down at the table, reached out to stop that restless, relentless tattoo against the edges of the table. _God_.  
  
“I’m not qualified for much in this new world. I never finished college, I’m good at this, at leading a strike team-“  
  
“You trust them?” Tony asked, “You trust SHIELD with one of the biggest weapons in the world?”  That was flattering, and somehow disappointing, but Steve hid it with a smile.  
  
“Iron Man could probably take me.”  
  
“You? Sure. Captain America? No.”

“What’s the difference?” Steve asked bitterly.  
  
“I think you know,” Tony said, “But do you trust SHIELD? Fury? You trust somebody who would send an employee to manipulate a politician into giving money to spend on- what?”  
  
Steve blinked at him, “This matters to you.”  
  
“Of course it matters,” Tony threw his hands up, “Isn’t that the point of a team, of friends? Are we friends, Steve? Or would you wake up in a new future and tell somebody I didn’t actually care about you?”  
  
Well, wasn’t that a kick in the teeth. “Tony-“  
  
“I’m not asking you if you care about me,” Tony waved a hand, eyes burning as he sat back against the red vinyl of the bench, “I’m asking if you think I don’t care about you. And if you really trust Nick ‘my secrets have secrets’ Fury.”

That deserved an honest answer, and Steve smiled, suddenly, “I wouldn’t ever say that,” he said, “You always tell me how it is, and I like that, even if you say it so fast I can’t hardly keep up. But I think we’re friends. And Fury is...” he sighed, “Brass, I guess. I’m just used to it.”  
  
“We aren’t at war,” Tony said, “And if you let yourself think that way, you’ll cause one.”  
  
He had a point. A fair point. “What would you rather I do?”  
  
“Claim your pension,” Tony replied immediately, “Sign up for the art classes I keep spamming your feeds with. Maybe look at the goddamn stock options my dad gave you, and buy yourself the place in Brooklyn you really can afford. Maybe you’ll get some skinny jeans. A man bun? No, no man bun, Steve, it’ll just do bad things for your forehead. Maybe ironic glasses – ooh, a _beard_ -“  
  
“Stop,” Steve said, “You don’t do it on purpose?”  
  
“I- really don’t. But I get caught up, and-“ he waved his hands, “And have to go!”  
  
“Can you go back? I didn’t realize I had a pension? Or- or stock options?”  
  
“...I’m going to kill him.”

“You can’t kill Fury,” Steve said reasonably.  
  
“I can make him sorry,” Tony fumed, “So sorry.”  
  
“Sorry for what?” Steve accepted another cup of coffee, and Tony took a deep swing of it- it smelled fresh- and the waitress slid another piece of cheesecake in front of him- and okay, he’d eaten everything else already? Even Tony’s leftovers?  
  
He needed to work on that. Somehow.  
  
But it looked so good- he took a bite.  
  
“Sorry he didn’t give you the footing you needed to actually live today,” Tony said, looking away at the jukebox, mouth twisted to the side, forehead furrowed.  He blamed himself, too, Steve realized, and that just wasn’t fair.  That wasn’t how it had been.  
  
“They probably told me?” Steve said, “But there was so much information, I haven’t even gone through all the folders they gave me to read- I just... didn’t want to. It’s probably in my apartment. Somewhere.”  
  
“What’d they give you?”   
  
“Mostly I just read the obituaries,” Steve said, “And the Avengers files. And all the updates stuff, like civil rights and What wars we fought in and what we won and what we lost.”  
  
“Holy-“ Tony shook his head, “Yeah, I know that feeling. I still read through all the reports from where my weapons went, and-“ he shrugged. “Well.”  
  
Steve nodded, “Yeah. So... you think I should quit.”  
  
“I think you should have the option,” Tony said, “And I think you should... make your own choices, not just... oh, who am I to tell you anything?” He laughed, “I’m a fuck up. Maybe that’s why? I know intimately all the things that you shouldn’t do because you feel lost and disconnected and inhuman.  I’m a cheap trick, a cheesy one-liner. Ask anybody.”  
  
“I,” Steve said slowly, “Am a dancing monkey. So, there’s that.”

The waitress came with the check, and Steve took it before Tony could, grabbing his wallet and pulling out the appropriate bills with a nice tip. She smiled, and he smiled back, and Tony stared at him, thumb in the fold of his wallet.  
  
“What?”  
  
“I didn’t realize you were actually buying. I mean, usually. I just-“  
  
Steve smiled, and stood, “I wouldn’t mind a ride,” he said, “To where I’m staying.”  
  
“I can do that,” Tony said, and they ducked out of the diner, walking to the car.  
  
Tony was quiet, and Steve let him be, watching out the window as the lights streaked by, no people, only lights.  
  
“I work with every one of my friends,” Tony blurted, “And I know you hate not doing anything, I know it’s got to drive you crazy, and I want to do- to give-“ he bit his lips and Steve waited, “SHIELD isn’t it, for-for you. For this century. We aren’t all warmongering spies. There’s, I don’t want-“  
  
“You aren’t,” Steve told him, “A soldier. Or a war monger. You’re a genius, Tony. I’ve seen the things you’ve made, and-“  
  
“And most of it is really cool, very flashy. Super useful. I mean, now. It is now. I don’t do weapons anymore. Not even for shield. But I wanted to say, don’t take this as- I’m not buying you, Pepper tells me to be sure people know I’m not buying them. I’m a horrible consumer. I just- I want you to paint.”  
  
“Tony, you don’t have to pay me to paint you something- I don’t do it much anymore, but I’d be happy to make ya something, I dunno what you’d want, I mean, it’s not great art-“  
  
“Or draw,” Tony said, “And not for me, god no, I want to hire you to paint murals. Or patient rooms. For- for kids, maybe. Or people in general who are sick and don’t get out or Alzheimer’s, I just, You paint. And I pay. Maybe? If you wanted. And if you don’t want I’ll do it anyways because I like the idea but I bet you’d do great and-“

Steve laughed, brightly, “Suave. The magazines say you’re suave. Tony, how?”  
  
“Hey!” Tony stabbed a finger at him- scarred along the knuckles, scabbed, grease ground into the nailbed. “I am suave. Smooth! I am an absolutely calm-“ he caught Steve’s expression and smiled, then laughed, “You- you are a little shit!”  
  
“Big shit,” Steve nodded, his cheeks aching with the grin.  
  
“Yes. You are, god, wow. Okay. Okay, Steve Rogers is a troll. Who knew?”  
  
“No one will believe you,” Steve snickered.  
  
“Asshole.”  
  
“Yup.”  
  
“I like it.”  
  
“Good. Because it’s who I am.”  
  
Tony laughed again, and Steve let himself enjoy the moment, bask in it and press it between pages. “Will you think about it? Painting?”  
  
“I will,” Steve said, “You’re right. There’s no war. And I used to... I used to love it. Art, I mean.”  
  
“I understand.”  
  
Steve watched the street lights flicker over Tony’s face, the little smile at the corner of his mouth and eyes, “What did you love? Before-“  
  
“Before Howard took it away? Gave me weapons to design and bombs to build?” Tony sighed. “I should be drunk for this.”  
  
“I can drive.”  
  
“You cannot,” Tony’s grip tightened on his steering wheel, “Do you know what this is, you plebeian?”  
  
“A car?”  
  
Tony choked.

“It is not, it is an Aston Martin-“  
  
“Expensive car,” Steve amended.  
  
“Beautiful car,” Tony groaned, “And you don’t drive.”  
  
“I learned in Germany,” Steve grinned to watch him wince.  
  
“No. No driving.”  
  
Steve leaned back in his seat and smiled, wishing suddenly they weren’t only a block more from his hotel, that he could stay with Tony, keep feeling awake. Keep feeling alive.

Tony dropped him off, and Steve went up to his room and laid down, because it was nighttime and he would be asleep if he needed to sleep- and thought about painting murals in hospitals, imagined beautiful cars and scenes from Europe without war, and thought about fighting.  
  
He wasn’t surprised when he got an email from Pepper Potts with an official job offer, and a fair salary. He’d almost expected something outrageous, a celebrity debutante’s payroll, but the offer wasn’t. It was straightforward, honest, and opened a door to something beyond the world he’d woken up in.  
  
He wrote and sent his acceptance, and then his resignation.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first work in this fandom - I hope you've enjoyed it! Kudos and comments are Life, and make me want to write more. 
> 
> This fic was unbeta'd, and if you spot an error, please let me know.


End file.
